Bled, Slovenia

The Republic of Slovenia. Do you know where it is? Just north of Italy, south of Austria, a little to the west of Croatia, and occupying tiny stretch of Adriatic coastline. Slovenia split from the former Yugoslavia and became an independent country in 1991. A member of NATO since 2004 and joined the Eurozone in 2007.

Bled is a charming spa town of just over 6000 people in Northwest Slovenia. Bled Castle has stood at the top of this rocky cliff 100 meters above Lake Bled since the 11th century. The crane is a much later addition.

The choir gave a concert in St. Martin's Church (Župnijska cerkev svetega Martina). The Neo-Gothic church was completed in 1905, and contains a number of frescoes painted in 1930, one portraying Lenin as Judas Iscariot at the Last Supper. They weren't too keen on Lenin.

We did some shopping at the local grocery store. Better get that bad apple out of there!

This friendly gentleman was demonstrating his lookalike bookmarks that he was selling in his souvenir shop. He was the proud dad of two daughters, one was a ballet dancer, and the other was the Slovenian mountain biking champion.

A wall of canisters of tea.... every flavour you could imagine. I bought some fragrant herbal tea to take home as gifts.

Above: A topographic map of the area around Bled displayed on the main street.... these mountains are the Julian Alps, a popular winter sports destination. A showery day, but the rain didn't spoil our enjoyment of a lovely town.

More pictures to come.
If you have visited Bled in Slovenia, please leave a comment and tell me about it.

4 + 4 = 8

Yep, another year (or should that be two?) has gone by in the life of the twinnies.

Mummy planned a chocolate layer cake, but before she had a chance to put it together, the twins came into the kitchen asking "which one is mine?" so they had a cake each. 

Happy, happy, happy.

Back to Europe trip pics in next post!

Venice 3

St. Mark's Square, Piazza San Marco, is the social, political and religious centre of Venice, and also home to shops in the Merceria displaying all sorts of touristy items, mostly overpriced. And of course, the inevitable teeshirt and hat booths enticing you to spend some euros on souvenirs to take home.

Piazza San Marco looking towards St Mark's Basilica and it's bell tower. The west facade of the church is comprised of great arches, and marble decorations, and Romanesque carvings around the central doors. The square is ideal for the fat pigeons who congregate there hoping for hand outs from the tourists.

St. Mark's Campanile is the free standing bell tower of the Basilica. The original 9th to 12th century bell tower was built on Roman foundations. Through the centuries the tower was damaged by lightning strikes and fire and was often under repair. In 1902 the tower collapsed (the caretaker's cat was the only victim, how sad) and was rebuilt on the same Roman foundations in 1912, 1000 years after the original construction.

The front of Saint Mark's Basilica is covered with decorative carvings. The first St. Mark's church was completed in AD 832, burned in 976, and rebuilt in 978. The current church was consecrated around AD 1093, but has seen many changes since then. Gradually the outer brickwork became covered with marble and carvings.

 Details of the doors of the basilica. Each door shows a different animal face. Dogs? Cats? Devils?

The Men of Note's first performance on the concert tour was at evening Mass in St. Mark's Basilica. What an honour to raise their voices in such a beautiful church. Some of their repertoire sung in Latin: Veni Creator Spiritus, Morte Christi, and Ave Maris Stella.
Unfortunately it wasn't possible to video the performance, even though we had prior permission.
No foto! Nessun video! Non possibile!

Most of Venice is built at sea level so after a very stormy and rainy day, the rainwater has nowhere to go, and water was bubbling up out of the drains to flood St Mark's Square. St Mark's Campanile reflects in the puddles. 

more pictures to come

If you have visited Venice, leave me a comment and tell me about it.

Venice 2

Our second day in Venice was a bit rainy and pleasantly cool. I'll take damp cool weather any day over HOT and steamy!

We took the No. 1  vaporetto from San Marco all the way along the Grand Canal to Piazzale Roma. The water bus stops at 20 stations on it's way along the Canal..... the main local bus route through Venice.

The stone Rialto Bridge, Ponti de Rialto, has spanned the Grand Canal since 1591. But the bridge you see here is an image of the bridge on a construction cover, the actual bridge is undergoing some repair and renovation. 

The gondolas are traditional flat bottom rowing boats. Venice law says that all gondolas are painted black, and there are over 400 of them in active service carrying tourists. Gondoliers have to go through a long apprenticeship before earning one of the 425 gondolier licenses. 
Venice approved it's first woman gondolier in 2010.

Is Venice sinking? Lots of people think it is. The city has it's origins on swampy islands in the middle of a lagoon. Recent studies show that sea levels are rising, and the city is subsiding ever so gradually. One study says the city is sinking 3 to 4 cm per century, another study says 10 cm.
Better visit Venice while it's still there!

No Mafia! Venice is sacred!

More pictures to come.
If you have visited Venice, please leave me a comment and tell me about it.

Venice 1

I'm back from a couple of weeks on a European Concert Tour with the "Men of Note", our town's male voice choir. The first stop was Venice, only for two days, but we saw so much of the beautiful city. What a wonderful place! There's nothing like it anywhere. Everyone should see Venice at some time in their lives.... it should be mandatory.
Our first day was HOT, 29C, which was brutal especially after a long and tiring overnight flight from Canada. Our second day was rainy, stormy, and a lot cooler, thank goodness.

There are 433 bridges over the Venice canals, connecting around 126 islands, all with steps up and steps down.... we didn't cross all of them but by the end of the day my aching legs felt like we did!

View from the vaporetto taking us from the Tronchetto coach park into Venice. We shared the vaporetto with a student group from Poland, and exchanged songs, our men's chorus singing in English, and then the students answering with songs in Polish. Lots of cheering and applause.  Music is an international language. 
A magical memory.

Our knowledgeable guide on the walking tour. A walking encyclopedia as far as Venezia history is concerned.

Crowded outside the Doge's Palace? No not really.... just wait until July and August.

The Bridge of Sighs connects the Doge's Palace with the Prisons. 
Tradition says convicts had a final look at the beautiful city before being led to their cells, or to a date with the executioner. Sigh.....

More pictures to come. 
If you have visited Venice, please leave me a comment and tell me about it.

Off on an Adventure!

I'm heading to the airport on a Grand Adventure.... and I'll be posting pictures when I get back.

I don't intend my luggage to be lost.... I'll spot this suitcase on the carousel immediately! (unless anyone else is crazy enough to travel with bright orange luggage.)

I'll be in Italy, Slovenia, Austria, Czech Republic and United Kingdom. Fingers crossed for nice weather. A few showers are OK, but I prefer sunshine.

Edited: I'm back from my world travels. 
The bright orange suitcase stood up well through being heaved in and out of planes, trains, buses, cars, elevators, escalators, and up and down stairs. 
The handle is still attached, as are the wheels.
Amazing!

Under Renovation

This elegant Victorian brick house was built in 1889 for Mr. John Baker, a wealthy lumber mill owner. It's had numerous owners since then, and the current owner bought it in 1978. It had been empty for a while and needed a lot of TLC.

The house has been covered in scaffolding ever since.  I had a tour through the house many years ago, and it was in really bad shape. The owner acquired enough slates to cover the leaky roof, but as slate is so heavy, the rafters and the roof framework had to be strengthened. The scaffolding came down on this side of the house for the Doors Open event, but it's still there on the other side as the roof's still not completely finished.

The third floor (originally the attic) is being renovated and made into an apartment. Will it ever be finished? Maybe. It's only been 37 years so far. Plenty of time to get it done. That round hole used to be a circular stained glass window, now it's just a round hole.

The view over the neighbouring rooftops out of an open door on the third floor. Where does the door lead? To the scaffolding of course.

Meanwhile work continues throughout the rest of the house. The owner opened the house to the public for Doors Open day. Needless to say, lots of locals crowded into the house eager to get a glimpse of the progress had been made inside the infamous "scaffolding house" over the past 37 years. When I was there around the middle of the day, over 750 people had already been up and down the stairs.

It's going to be a lengthy project I think.

 Interested in a reno challenge? The owner says it may be going on the market in the near future.